I'm hearing these alien words that terrify me.
Terminal, seroconvert, infection, inconclusive, possibility.
They say stay strong, keep your chin up.
They don't understand just the possibility is enough.
Who wants a woman you can't take to bed?
Who wants to fear when I bled?
Alien words, alien feelings, foreign bodies inside and out of me.
But don't worry, they say.
It's controllable, a pill a day.
Pills. That's what they give me.
For the depression, the infection, the anxiety.
I feel as helpless as the child I will never bare.
"What the hell is going on" I blare.
Testing, testing, testing they say.
As I ***** to cope and my legs give way.
Fragility, infertility, susceptibility.
But don't worry, it's all just a possibility.

Few can pronounce it
Unless Scandinavian.
The r's are all rolling,
And the letters all sound...
More or less not as
In English.
Just let it go, it's a 'twister,
I know.

My names are all old-norse,
Not modern Norwegian.
(Viking-speak sounded
More close to Icelandic).
Sverre means "spin like an arrow",
Expression for being untamed; un-
Controllable; wild-man.
G is for Guttorm: "Where Gods
Seek Shelter"; a fortress for those
One thought needed one least.
Holter means "edge of the woods";
The end of the forest (or where it
Begins).

The Wildman Where the
Gods Seek Shelter at the
Edge of the Woods.

My friends call me Sverre.
It is a name I've shared with
Swordbearing kings.
I am equally proud
When addressed.

Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret,Kenya;aopicho@yahoo.com)
This essay is based on the observation research that had been carried out  by a social research firm in  Eldoret, Kenya, in the preceding six moths, which has been concluded on 30th January 2014.I the writer of this essay was among the lead team that carried out this study.We unobtrusively observed two thousand University graduates from east African states of Kenya,Uganda,Tanzania,Rwanda,Ethiopia,Sudan,and Burundi plus a few form some parts of Congo .Our target population of two thousand graduates was used under the guiding assumptions that it would help the study to arrive at water tight social conclusions.Our problem of focus was that ;why are male graduates in east Africa not marrying fellow graduates but instead go for marital partners who have substantially lower education qualification and even academic achievement.
The conditions of serendipity was also encountered and taken care of , when we also deviated from the natural social settings and charted with our digital social media friends who were approximately two thousand as well.They were digital social friends from Facebook and twitter digital social platforms. We  posted a thread in question form that ; if you were marrying today , would you marry a girl you graduated with the same year? Eighty percent of the responses to this thread was no , only twenty percent was yes.
The actual situations in an empirical experience is that male graduates prefer marrying ladies who stopped schooling in high school,and male high school or diploma college graduates prefer marrying ladies who don’t have clear high school education.And male primary school leavers prefer marrying ladies with inferior social positions like those who come from poorer families or from different tribal communities that are geographically, economically or culturally disadvantaged.
And in case where a male graduate dares to marry a fellow graduate , the dominantly observed social behaviour in this juncture is that ; the boy will go for the girl in a different school or faculty that is perceived to be inferior within the university academic climate.Like a student of medicine or law will go for a girl doing education or any University course perceived to be inferior.But the observation  produces insignificant cases of where a medicine student daring to marry a fellow medicine student.The minor cases of where a medicine student dares to marry a fellow medic will only take place in a social fabric that the male student at fifth year level will go for a girl in first year.Still there is a social tilt.
When we asked for reasons in a non-obtrusive manner from our unsuspecting respondents.We got both positive reasons and negative reasons.The positive reasons our respondents gave are that in most cases girls who don’t make it to the university happen to be more beautiful or their physique is more sexually appealling than those ladies who make it to the university.when we projected this type of reasoning , we also found that ladies who are in schools like education,journalism or any other school perceived  inferior in the cultures of the University are again more beautiful and more socially enticing than the girls doing University courses like law ,medicine or engineering.One of the respondents made a socially outlying remark by saying that girls at the polytechnic or certificate colleges are usually light in the skin,**** in character and blessed with big or pronounced bossoms than ladies at the university.
When we asked the negative reasons , our respondents argued that  ladies from the university are not controllable,neither are they prepared to be controlled come even the marriage. Further argument for these behaviour by male  graduates is that the University ladies are sexually exhausted,As they usually stay with a man in the hostel or in the cube during the four or the five years of their live at the University. Some even live with different men interchangeably, after which they divorce those many on the graduation day.Another response is that University ladies have a proclivity towards social hangout behaviours like smoking ,pinching or revving in the wine spree and loving the pocket but not the owner of the pocket.
This social phenomenon have imperative concerns that there is high level of genetic mismatch through marriages in east Africa or any other part of the world which east Africa can be socially generalizable to in such particular socialization.Graduate ladies are often forced to marry as second wives , or marry non graduate husbands or stay as a single mother but playing a mistress somewhere, a social behviour described as mpango wa kando or chips funga in the the east African Kiswahili parlance. Such social encounters have a long term consequences of fettering the genetic potential of the family in terms of  academics.When we conform to a warning by an eminent American psychologist that ; ninety percent of academic brilliance is contained in the genes but not influenced by environment we then obviously concur with the findings of this study that if a graduate marries a graduate there is a guarantee for academic performance among the offspring , but where a graduate marries  a non graduate ,  academic performance among the offspring is either mediocrous or probabilistic.The findings of this study also fall in technical tune and intellectual tandem with the observations of Lee Kuan Yeow in his book; From the third world to the first world in which he pointed out that; failure by the male graduates from  Universities in Singapore to marry the fellow female graduates was an impeachment to development as the ultimate consequence of these social behaviours is unnecessary inhibition of good genetics at a macroeconomic level.
The conclusive position of this study is that University leaderships in Africa, with a particular focus on east Africa, must inspire new University culture that has a turnaround effect on this behavioural status quo.The reality is that male graduates behave like this out of a dominance syndrome not out of anything technically worthwhile.Kindly , let our graduates change their marriage behaviour so that we can substantially protect our genetic advantages.

References;
Lee Kuan Yeow; From Third World to the First World
Alexander K  Opicho, is a social researcher at Sanctuary Research agencies in Eldoret, Kenya.He is also a lecturer  for Research Methods in Governance.

as my sister
inspects
her *******
in the white
piece of paper
we both
refer to
as the one
and only
ghost
mirror

I fry
god’s egg
in the plastic
shovel
I took
from a sandbox
shaped
like a coffin

and shiver
like the psychic
who with
the controllable
sobbing
of her hands
gave our seizures

to animals

Charlie was a leprechaun,
midway born into a family
of thirteen
the scourge of catholic school
daring to shout ‘Thank God’
when the mass was ended
smoking cigarettes
for their illicit thrill,
found himself a summer job
cleaning up the trash
at the town park,
found himself in the background
of a photo of the young cleanup crew
on the cover of the community newspaper
he was flipping off the photographer.
his mom made him wear an ace bandage
that covered his hand
but for his *******
for two weeks
his laughter was un-controllable

I laid there staring
at the insanely
bright and rude
fluorescent light
that
mocked my suffering.
The cold concrete
floor felt
good against
my screaming aches.

My body was
pleading with the
Gods for just a
taste of what
had been taken
away.

My bowels were as
controllable as
a teen aged
beauty.

With a ****
I brought my
burning face
toward the cool
silent cold metal
toilet.
Ugly yellow bile
that only a tired
and tortured
body could
produce
spewed forth.

A moan and a wipe
then a hollow knock
on the graffiti
covered cell door.
"You made bail"
an almost robotic
sounding voice
says.

With a thousand tiny
swordsman stabbing
at my face I
managed to smile
into my own bile.
I looked at the
mustached uncaring
face in the
small window.
"You look like Death Pal"
The mustache says to me.

I spit the acrid taste
of day old *****
and ****** resin.
Then rise and run my
sweaty palm through
my hair in an
attempt at looking
presentable.

The mustache opens
the door and
as I walk out
I look directly at the
rogue hairs
protruding from
the mustaches nostrils
and say.
"Death Is Beautiful"

The mustache holds
the door as I walk out.
I'm feeling better already

"Oh Yea well so was my Xwife
look at how much trouble
she still causes me".
The mustache says

Every step
I take down
the institutional colored,
masonic checkered floored
hallway causes
my body
to scream with hope.

I can feel the sweat
roll down my face
but I refuse to let
this mustache
see my suffering.

We stop at the
property window,
I sign a half
of an X where it
says signature.

Then before
I gather up
my belongs
and head
back out into the
night I looked
over at the
mustache and said
"You had a Wife?"

Mood stabilizers, they call them, but in some ways, they're more like painkillers for your heart. They numb the feelings so that you don't have the extreme moods you are accustomed to.

When you have a mood disorder, everything you feel is so much more intense, and so much more certainly snowballs out of control. That's most of the problem; the complete lack of control you have over your chaotic emotions.

But then you go to a doctor, and they give you happy little pills called stabilizers to do just as they're told to. Stabilize you. Normalize you.

Funny thing is, even with the little heart painkillers, you'll never be normal. Even if you keep up a fantastically ordinary facade, you will never be ordinary. You will always have those little pills in your pocket telling you that you are not good enough the way you are, that you must change.

Its a double-edged sword, these pills. Because some days you wonder why you can't just be you, why do you need these drugs in your veins, but then you remember the cuts on your arms and the painful nights where you drowned in your own tears and you remember why even you don't think the person you are is acceptable. Get better, Grace, be better, Grace. The words pound in your ears until you forget who you used to be and you are always striving to be something more, something better. You strive until it kills you.

You are stronger, you can beat it, they say.

What if I don't want to beat it, though, just want to have control of it? I never want to feel less than everything, I never want to feel so dull and numb that it kills me more than the pain ever did, I never want to beat myself, I simply want to be me but controllable.

Because right now I'm uncontrollable and that's terrifying.

Painkillers for your heart, numbing you until you can't feel anymore. But sometimes I wonder if I really want to feel numb.

Do I want to be me, or who everyone wants me to be?

One is safer than the other, but which one is really living?

Because all I want is to feel alive, but I don't know whether surviving will entail that.

Painkillers or killer pain.

That is my decision, one I'm not ready to make. Maybe tomorrow, when mania is not so close to my throat.

Maybe tomorrow, because I am far too afraid of today.

A toe-tapper with dapper deities dancing amongst my dreams, whilst whispering the seeds of hidden keys

Interloper of the thieves

Charmer of the fleas

A Powerful peon, seceding from the teams

Daring to believe in the sea, swallowing the cities in its grief

Dare to achieve the belief of flight and fly away

Contemplate and fall in over thought

Just do not

Stop

Doing the undo-able

Fate is renewable

Outwardly controllable

In what you think you see in the deplorable hues from the hopeful news of better days, lead astray in satisfaction to the complaints of saint-less ways

I debate creating another other place, and drifting away through space, but hey, maybe its a phase and i'm just late to the show

Last to know your nothings

Im [Spinning]

In place

Revel in space, yet not darkled, still
the **** and span of things that breeds
airlessness; The trees are evenly cut,
and their overgrowth seems like a forethought.
Where I am from, we eat fish with
our bare hands and our furniture, from bodies
of sandalwood, crushed with the scent of
peregrines. The morning makes you conscious
of space, and altogether the height of trees
syncopates to a nauseating stillness. In the awning
hours, leaves punctuate the ground – the cicada
with its machinistic song prowls, spills like
water from a broken vase toppled by me
years younger, raw, agile, deftly windless,
  wounded in love, lovingly wounded,
perhaps if there is a word for it, then let me
have my way, easily fraught with its meaning:
   a casualty. Sometimes the timeworn folks
would light cigarettes underneath the canopy
of a mango tree to banish ants and send them back
  to their queens – roosters in their wrinkled stations
croon in stasis, a song for the somnolent. I become
what the seasons evict. Constancy. Rearing weight
and gravity from nocturne. Tears are communal.
They make us aware of the weight of the Earth.
Somewhere, a funebre stilts through the silence,
and the jangle of little pieces spells out fortuity,
men in huddles mending pain by the sleight of hand,
a toss of a card, spinning in its imaginary axis: fate,
   feigned and fine-tuned to belief that it is controllable,
a variable, or a tabulation marred by frailty. From where
I am from, people stride through the streets naked,
soldering baskets filled with fruits gossamer from the
harvest, children suckling their mothers, the music of sweeping
metastasizes throughout the afternoon, and the same clouds
contort themselves to afford wry proposition: it is a day tender
with wonder, its allure overwrought, its sheen unremarkable.
  The funebre leaves with a necessary abundance of absence.
All the leaves depart from their mothering boughs,
  collapsing on the dreary back of the loam like penitence.
Like how once when you were young, you tinkered with
the fresh scab of your wound and felt the pain confine
  itself there, a part of you, that has now healed, but is still
      available for the world to break once again.

I have a memory that kills me
Like shards of glass sliding through my atrium,
Undetectable until it has ripped an
Irreparable hole in my heart.
His arm is tightened around my neck,
Pressure behind,
Pulling me to him,
My fear thicker than the air I could not breathe.
And then it was over,
Over like the red and sweat of my face
As the oxygen rushed back in.
Therapist says it was not an accident.
In 30 seconds he had tested me.
I was controllable.
Pass or fail
Depends on who you ask.

A thought
It could be anything
Cars
Video games
Books
A fun word
It's fun to see where thoughts
Go
If allowed to wander
They usually
Go
To sleep
Go
To perverted matters
They are not
Easily
Controllable
But they can be.
Or at least
I'd guess.
I plan to make
No
Effort to control
This stream of
Emotions
Ideas
Life
Because that ruins the
Fun.

Long hair
hair that covers my wishfully bony shoulders inconsistently

Inconsistent eyes
eyes that flash here and there, eyes that cover up a part that is unfinished

Unfinished body
body that is easily forgettable

Forgettable laugh
laugh that erupts with annoyance until it goes slow

Slow tongue
tongue that savors and starves and tricks and lies

Lying mind
mind that wants to know minds yet it deceives me; not controllable

Controllable heart
heart that wants to stand strong on something, anything, yet perishes in hibernating

Hibernating sleep
sleep walking through the day, waiting for time to be recycled

Recycled thoughts
thoughts that stick like mud, filling empty cracks and suffocating new birth bitterly

Bitter skin
skin that holds in the creepy crawling stinging

Stinging fear
fear that I cannot and will not be me

Me

Things aren't going right again today
I wish I could close my eyes and pretend
That's everything would be fine soon

But then again, I need to tackle this mess
It threatens to over power me and gain
Do you know that creepy feeling, like all is lost?
Like you can feel dejected and simply sigh!
Or scream your agony out!

Some how that should help,
make things controllable
But it doesn't do a dime!

So I pause and gather my thoughts,
Penning my frustration,
at odds that fly in my path
Some how I attract the worst
I feel like that all the time

Then I close my eyes and think!
No there is worse!
I am not there!
With the worst
I am here with the blest.

I have roof over my head
Clothes to wear
A job that pays
Food on the table and
loved ones to care.

This mess is the selfishness pouring
Out of hearts that have forgotten gratefulness
In its place grows restlessness
To seek and infect and thrive on sadness
Till it devours and make its conquest.

Oh Lord, my frustration is overpowering
If you don't do something soon I'll trip
That's not what I'd want cause I'll feel like a wreck
So I turn my gaze to you and reflect
Ask myself, what did you learn today
Did you get buried in your problems
Or did you look up and pray.

You see, the GREAT TEACHER, is watching
Life's little lessons he sends our way
Chapters on human psychology
Management of Time and Stress
His methods are tough
Not meant for the weak
Only the strong, can pass His test.

He never mean't it to be easy
Cause your are just not anybody
But His special treasure
Which He would like to gather
Richer and purer, after a struggle that's worthy
Of His Kingdom so glorious.
Which I await with a sadness, the longer I tarry!

With this experience firmly noted in my life's book
I shall mark it with gladness, for when again history repeats itself
I shall remember to read this lessons with gratefulness
The GIFT of words He gave, so that I can share.
When again frustration raises it ugly head
Armed with HIS words I'll fight my best.

when your writing non-stop
writing the ink out your pens
or leads out your pencils
then i must confess
have you heard of poetic disease
because i think i've been possessed

when your mind has things flowing
and you know it can't stop
i bet it would be hours until the pencil or pen drops

this is not a real disease
but you can catch this mentaly
and once you do
just imagine all the writing your mind will allow you to

image the thoughts that'll run your mind
image the flow that'll control your mind
when i was first possessed i thought i was crazy
my hands moving non-stop it seemed so amazing

i felt so great
my poems were coming back to back
like music i had a un-controllable flow
and thats a moment i ll never let go

for anyone who has had this disease
tell the world your feelings
your experience
was it good bad or great
did you love it or hate
cause i've never witnessed such a disease that allows us to create

No doorknobs exist on this floor.
I can't find any outlets.
The belt that lady--I didn't mean to
disappoint--bought me is coiled,
surrounded by Tupperware walls.
A nurse checked herself in. No
affect; asking for charge; reset.
I'm twenty and letting down my dad.
My belt used to live at JC Penny
and has navy-outlined bass on it.
One of the counselors is black,
from Africa, was adopted, moved
here to be raised by two JP Morgan
lifers, played collegiate soccer, married,
got pregnant, lost the boy--which he said
he had a feeling it would have been.
So, he can relate.
No doorknobs exist on this floor.
I am twenty and this exists in the past.
Wheeling in due to an inability to walk
--totally her brain's fault; a real former-
controllable, current-uncontrollable thing
that her mind pulled on her, on account
from the cold, Vaseline touch of a relative
--this redheaded girl pretends to smile
before apologizing for pretending to smile.
Our black counselor, former soccer player
and father says to not apologize and that
we are all pretending, all the time, even
when we don't think we are.
I find this strangely comforting.

Neon lights reflect again and again,
In the puddles and streams
As the rain pours heavy
In that unfinished city.

Great Jupiter blots out the sky;
So imminent, yet silent.
Ever watching the endless construction;
Of its infant moons

Ganymede is all but consumed
In towers and scaffolds,
Endless looping highways,
And defunct machinery.

In the eyes of Jupiter
Has it been but a moment,
But to the denizens of that place,
Their reign is endless.

Their ancient cities and facilities
Devour everything in their path
And in that slow process,
Have become a new entity all together.

One not entirely controllable.
A system and network of its own
That desires something beyond sight,
Something its creators lost long ago.

Stop it with the temper tantrums and "poor me"s
Stop victimizing yourself because you are the one hurting yourself
Mistakes are understandable and two-time mistakes are fine
But Jesus ******* Christ
You do this all the time
It's stupid and irrational and self destructive
It hurts me to see you in pain but I have pains of my own
Pains that aren't controllable
I.e. A parent with cancer
Yet your pain stems from the continual decision to smoke **** and get too high
You say you're embarrassed and you should be
You can't control the sad environment around you
But  you can control how you respond to it
So stop responding this way because we're all fed up with the *******
You need help -- Literally
You need a therapist and a psychiatrist
Hell! If I had a prescription pad, I'd put you on a high dose of prozac
And sort out those daddy issues of yours
You are a genuinely good, kind person
But your life is going nowhere because you're too caught up in your cruel past
I hate to say this, but get over it
Because things will not fall into place unless you make an effort to fix your disposition

I'd always thought I had more self respect
Than to let someone touch me when I didn't want them to
But I realize now it's not really about self-respect
Not with who I am right now
Because when you're not living for yourself-
Or, let me rephrase that,
You care for other people, so you haven't killed yourself-
You get out of practice with saying what you want
No matter whether you love who you are or not

I want you to stop touching me, it's starting to bother me, to eat away at my happiness before I sleep at night

Some part of me is still the princess
It's how I survive the dark, I play the ultimate innocent part
Trying to be perfect, polite, and kind
I don't want to make you feel bad or apologize
Self-sacrificing
Controllable

It comes down to how controllable I can be
Whether I can make the words fall off my tongue, for myself
Or whether I will bite them off before they begin, for you

*Life for yourself, as quick as you can
It only gets harder the farther away you get

I don’t know about those pastoral scenes
Those bucolic and primordial endless greens
Unspoilt trees and murmuring streams
I know the concrete and the pavement
Uneven cobblestones with cracks in them
With dandelions growing through
Only sometimes

I love the later more
I’m in love with the concrete behemoths
The back alleys of life
The gnarled bouncers (unreciprocally)
The curious glimpses at weathered flyers on the floor
I love the sterile street lights and the worn faces ILLUMINATED by them
The ushers and hustlers and cautious taxis
The drunk geniuses
The night-swimmers
The nudists
The opinionated
Etc

Yet life whittles down these loves for that of the
Calculable
The
Regimented
And
Controllable
Etc

Every one in this house
is always sleeping soundly
at this hour
but me

I shovel drugs and drinks
inside my now dry mouth
and they poke at my brain
who says
“spit it all out”

I close my eyes and mimic
the dark and the quiet
at this hour
but I

Can suddenly hear a party
that exists five cities over
and the people
they’re real
but they sound
like a radio
and I open my eyes
and the party is over
and the static is gone

Then I start to hum a song
to soothe my mind with
a familiar sound
something real
controllable

Everyone in this house
is always sleeping soundly
at this hour
but me

By now I’m out
of drugs and drinks
and I’m left with
thoughts and thinks
and I hear footsteps

I'm trying to build a window.
These aren't metaphors.
I'm not calling some empty headed person,
A beautiful vase with nothing to fill it.
I'm trying to say exactly what I see.
Rhymes, alliteration, technique are
Accidents.
These words just spew. I can't
Stop my hand
It's like a dull knife in the middle
Of butchering an animal.
It's barely controllable.
God knows if it'll go up or out,
If soon it'll cut me.
I like all this madness of action though.
It's almost a sport. Your heart
Doesn't race
But your head vibrates like it is.
You quiver and struggle to
Plan faster than instinct.
But are constantly reminded
That the whims of nature
Are so very out of your hands. Like this pen

an obsession defined is no obsession at all
strong, barely controllable, passion, when it rules
is invisible to the

when the storm passes
you are seeing the earth in the process of balance
the storms are not blotches of color on a screen
they do not follow dotted lines or spiked curves
they are living breathing churning of equipoise
and a universe strongly influenced by entropy
balance being a continuous give and take
in both large and small doses

you are truly alive only when you are young

the effects of todays spring thaw
will be felt tomorrow in the lower Lamoille
there seems to be room for more river
between the bank
the machines will increase flow
both upstream and down in a balance of volume

and it has been noticed that birds
prepare of the cold of the night
by roosting in pines facing the direction
of the morning sun

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~

some poems:

~

[raise god]

it’s a nice enough baby with an inability to emit. the adult world worries but no more than than it does for the television’s volume during bouts of ceasefire. parents divorce or parents agree on the same support group. siblings form a circle around a one trick pony. some believe the jack-in-the-box is broken while others believe it’s patient.

[taunts]

death is never early. take the first bite of every meal in front of a mirror. chase the kid while pulling a plastic bag over your head. invent a sibling schoolmates blind. know poverty, know moon. shampoo the elderly from a distance. baby no one. they have looked like hell since before you were born.

[pathos]

our fighting
determines
which of us
is more
sonsick.  

relic child, town crier.

I take what I’m given, beating.

cerecloth, snow
on snow
before and after

it buries.

me of course
as I position
myself
to hum

above
a basket.

me as I marry homeward
and kick

ball, stone, stiff
bird

stiff bird in death
doubling as
the rat
of an angel

yes
kick
for reasons known
to another’s

pet cobra

skin to skin
in an unmarked
life.

[costume]

we’re here to ****** the head of the boy who put a clown’s red nose on the girl playing jesus for stopped traffic. if I spoke your language, I would tell you.

[poor lighting]

a plastic doll with a human right hand distracts us from the parrot’s empty cage. we have been writing in unison instead of eating. our poverty is so advanced it keeps a fake diary and a real diary but hides them in the same spot. we are dying in two of our mother’s arms. our mother is elsewhere repeating after the man who does our stunts.

[collapse]

how
on a clear day  
my father
is the face
of absence.

how what I mean
cuts the finger

my mother
sips.

how porch blood
is not the same blood
the body
faints with.

how copperhead, how rattlesnake, how lisp

says I myth
my sister
who is still

vanishing
to shoplift
god

from the thunderstorm
we gave her.

[southern treehouse]

as my sister
inspects
her *******
in the white
piece of paper
we both
refer to
as the one
and only
ghost
mirror

I fry
god’s egg
in the plastic
shovel
I took
from a sandbox
shaped
like a coffin

and shiver
like the psychic
who with
the controllable
sobbing
of her hands
gave our seizures

to animals

[bait]

I didn’t see it
like some kids
saw it-

pain
as clay.

a swat here or there
to the back
of a mother’s
mind.

a man who took a bowling ball
into a closed garage
had no sadness
I could pray
over.

...Santa smoked on the roof
of my father’s house
while I
with a noiseless
stomach

touched
that hunger.

[how to live in the country dark]

toss frogs
into a fire
your father made.

find a woman
who’s abandoned herself
to being led
by a stick

let her blind mongrel
lick your palm.

bury a handful
of gravel
call it
the moon’s
grave.

hide in houses
hidden
from road.

make at least one friend
whose night vision
is a glass of milk.

double your body
by walking
drunk.

[outside the body it is always procession]

I may have lied about being pregnant but I know my ******* kid.

her father quells *******.

ants are quiet.

-

his teeth make sense.

our yell is I’m gonna shoot you in the blood.

-

elsewhere
is a light dusting
of downfall.  sleepily

legal

are the sunbathing sad.

[crown]

i.

a hand towel
over the lid
of any
stubborn
jar-

a mother to a father
or less frequently
a father to a mother
I don’t know why this is
but either way
a gentle admittance

to couple

as if passing beneath
the singing voice
of statue…

ii.

that stage
where a baby
is all
head

[mendicant]

this doorbell
is for the inside
of your house

-

to some
you’re the giant
you’re not

-

hearing isn’t for everyone  

-

a fog-softened man
with a baby
might experience
a sense
of boat
loss…

-

hurt

what you know

[crystal]

a foster boy using an alias teaches my son to shoot.

it’s the tooth fairy on a sad day finds
under my pillow
a handgun.

you know your father
is a night owl.

[dog years]

the longer
I grieve

the more

~

below is an unpublished companion piece {shuteye in the land of the sacred commoner} to my recent chapbook, infant*cinema (**** Press, April 2016)  

as such:

~~~~~

[shut-eye in the land of the sacred commoner]

~
poetry and god share the same quick death.

I’m on what you’re on;
the eighth day of the world.



~
it’s all in your head.  the newborn we had on a mountaintop.  the word it knew from memory.  its hand that stuck to everything but the dog our dog ate.  the cold our dog died from.  the tent we called aquarium. that we filled with diapers.  that was never full.



~
existence is the wrong inquiry.  

I was destroyed by an angel

for having
taste buds.  

/ a pinkness

went on
without me.



~
if touch is all it can manage

the hand is poor.

I am the new face
of baby
doorstep.

when lightning
has emptiness
to burn

feed
the fasting
doll.



~
I am old and nothing brings me joy.

I did
good things
but I
was asked.

drunk
outside
of a dog
shelter
I am likely
to remember
a library
pyros
love.

my uncle
he is probably
still
west of me
able

to open
a bottle
with the mouth
of a living
frog.



~
and what
would forgiveness
do?  

my kids were never born.  yours
they hide
from the number
of people
god
made.

when dead, I was not
a bird
yet
my mother
asks
what kind.

I can’t tell
by looking
if he’s seen
the future
or seen
the future
again.  I strip

when my stomach
hurts.



~
it puts me on my stomach

this grief
you have
for the switched
at death

-

god’s color has returned

-

the male
animals
in the grey
barn

knew

-

first



~
I want to say it is yes yes

puberty’s
painted
egg, the island

clock, the genitalia

of alarm…

I want to say it is orange

like bees
like
not all

the hymns
not all

condoms…



~
he says we are men
not because a raccoon
chased a bone
into the factory
of shadows.

he says it’s me
or the bag
of trash
and gives me
a knife.

he says before I was borned
we took
the same
bullet.  he says mouth.

I kick
he says
in my sleep
and it puts
a belly button
on a bird
one
bird.

he says them animals
ain’t so wild
as a dog
in drag

and your mother
is the outside
world.



~
the robot is a ******.

the baby
it goes
from baby
to baby
with no
message.

-

I want your work to matter.



~
subtitles, ghost
pollen / I sit

facing
my father

he strokes
a large
bumblebee…



~
eating behind the mirror’s back
it was all
hick lore
to me

a scratch
in scar’s
nakedness, a loss

of infancy
awarded
only
to the deaf
who dug up
the ears
of god
for nothing
more
than the sound

of depression
going blind
in the garden
of the hairdresser’s

hair



~
death
my way
of saying
goodbye
to god

-

had you lived
or enjoyed
amnesia...



~
when asked
I say
I see
on the floor
of a mudhut
a *** toy
having
a seizure.

I kiss the feet
you’re the future
of.



~
not
for devouring
the mannequin
but for eating
the seeds, it was

(in a coloring
  book
  for cigarettes)

beaten

by a baby
a baby
could love



~
I go with dove to high

dives / I am on

the pill
the swimmer’s
pill / for nine

months
I’ve hidden
a rabbit
from no one’s

hormonal
christ



~
it was for healing the hand of the plain hand
that I
was touched / well blood

on a bread
crumb
massage me
a brainwashed
worm / well comb

all you want
the eyesight
of god / swallow

a hair
in the house
birth
built…

-

can’t
this once
a thing
die
in the sanctuary
of its double




~
hell is a book.

she reads it
in a room
that’s alive.

attic or no, I want
to miss
my father.



~
nakedness,

give it time
to recover



~
into something from his childhood
a man
is born.  never

far off
what crawls
her way.



~
she reaches into the same hat for the rabbit he’s made disappear.

I sleep and the dark takes me for the bone

lightning
straightens.



~
church of intermission.  church of the rolled-away church my fever follows.  church of it ain’t a baby until it spits.  church of the lawnmower left running.  of the space you give the grieving horse.  church of you when you die in my sleep.  of musical suicides.  church of the disinfected high chair.  of the false bruise.  of how to become a balloon in the church of touch.



~
in the library’s dream, the abortion clinic is no bigger than a fingerprint.



~
this is me
praying
for a photo
of my father’s
last meal.

me

praying
to have
the allergic
reaction
my mother
faked.

for proof
of animal
suicide.

a mirror for my toys.  dirt for my brother.



~
and we touch to abridge doom in the bed of a headless man.  and we struggle to hear a father verbatim.  and we ask in a fierce wind a phone booth to please be a fireplace.  and a starfish consoles a handprint.



~
/ I was spotted covering my eyes by a dentist whose childhood had stopped disappearing.  how big is your family and who wears the mouth?  is it true your dad sold to a city gargoyle a spray-can of ****?  that your mom had no baby tired of being born?  that their suicides filled a madhouse with cubist maids?  

/ year nine:  your birthday spider is put on film for biting.  your sister takes one look at my brain and remembers what to feed and how to clean a cricket.

/ year eight:



~
my son doesn’t want the circle he’s drawing to touch the circle he’s drawing.

the dog
is a heartbroken
wolf.



~
she checks her teeth in the door glass of the oven.

the egg is dropped
and the owl
******.



~
when
did your caterpillar
become
a syringe?

I want to hide the clothes I’m wearing.

something touched
is something
mourned.



~
the woman had the suicidal absence of a man who’d just broken to his body that his blood was not the rooster patience devoured. if I peeled a potato, I did so in egg’s hell.



~
praise headgear, worship eyewear.

adore nostalgia, forgive

memorial’s
constant
vigil.

say god
three times, then

say mirror.



~
this is what you mean, kiddo

what you mean
to a bomb

/ it doesn’t help god

that god
is awake



~
for what
does the torso
pray?

the cocoon is music
to the mannequin’s
ear.

sister
she ain’t
been calm.



~
when grief
was password
and not
codename

when gift
horse
was horse
fly

when baby
little baby
shorthand
went all
stork-****

(on who)

to remember
god



~
outside the dream, I had written the most heartbreakingly clear poem about brotherhood.  inside

was this boy
was discovering
god’s thumb
is never
clean.  a boy whose mouth

was never
here.  all those I’ve met

I’ve left
alone.



~
asleep in the pickpocket’s bed, the baby is a mirage.  

I’m so fat
I’m fat
in the dark.  I compose

at my lowest
a crucifixion
story

from the basements
my father
wired.



~
putting the meat
back together
in an unfilled
pool

we yawned
at the same
time / brief

painless
the unmothered

between



~
as overcome as I was to be gifted a hospital gown, I had nothing on the angel whose brain / for visiting the eye / was banished…

we are the dead
we’re here
to return



~
by death I mean nothing was beautiful for a very long time.

that, and when did you know.

I know you never wanted
to breed an addict,
it's just one of those
uncontrollable risks that
accompanies parenting.

Or was it controllable?

I remember, as far back as
ten years old, you cursing freely
while I was in the room;
never directed at me though,
thank God.

You told me once, when I was twelve,
a playful smile on your face as you
gripped the steering wheel at 10 and 2,
that you wouldn't be surprised if I
became just as foul-mouthed as you.

Well gee, I wouldn't even utter
the word "God" for a year after that conversation.

But then the teen years hit,
those dastardly years of
storm and stress...
and rebellion.

That's where my addiction began,
in the midst of middle school.
What started out as a rebellious experiment
has quickly spiraled into
an uncontrollable addiction.

Oh, Mother;
we share the same looks, same jokes,
hell, even the same gender--
now add another commonality to our list:
the mouth of a sailor.

The mind- a blank canvas for some.
To throw hues of joy upon their spirits
and color their souls for the world to gaze in awe.
The mind- a steel cage for the rest.
Subjected to the wills of the many
whom steal their innocence and
tear down their carefully constructed walls.
These people, they try to control something with concrete thinking
and dogma, but the world is anything but controllable.
I see their rulings as fear. They live out of fear, I out of love.
Who is the real ******* enemy now, huh?